UN housing expert's call to axe bedroom tax 'a disgrace' - senior Tory
Party chairman Grant Shapps asks UN secretary general for apology and accuses Raquel Rolnik of having an 'agenda'
"The Tory party chairman, Grant Shapps, has described as an absolute disgrace a call from the United Nations for the government to scrap the so-called bedroom tax .
Accusing Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur on housing, of having an "agenda", Shapps said he had written to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, demanding an apology and an explanation of Rolnik's findings.
The UN investigator had not been invited to Britain by ministers, and was biased, Shapp said.
"It is completely wrong and an abuse of the process for somebody to come over, to fail to meet with government ministers, to fail to meet with the department responsible, to produce a press release two weeks after coming, even though the report is not due out until next spring, and even to fail to refer to the policy properly throughout the report.
"That is why I am writing to the secretary general today to ask for an apology and an investigation as to how this came about," Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
However, the Department for Communities and Local Government confirmed that Rolnik had met Eric Pickles, the secretary of state. She also met council officials in Glasgow.
Rolnik recommended the abolition of the bedroom tax - which the government calls the spare room subsidy - after hearing "shocking" accounts of how the policy was affecting vulnerable citizens during a visit to the UK..."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/11/un-housing-bedroom-tax-absolute-disgrace 